Author: jamesfinngarner

My friends Steve and Sharon Fiffer started a marvelous site a year ago called STORIED STUFF, where people show the various precious objects in their lives and share the story. He asked me to write one about baseball, so here are my random thoughts attached to an old autographed pill. To see the post in the original site, and to check the many other cool pieces of people’s personal memorabilia, visit Storied Stuff here.

This circus wagon toy from Fisher-Price was one of the most well-built and elaborate playthings I can remember from childhood. The wagon, which contained a multitude of pieces, had wooden bars, working wheels and entrance hatches both front and rear. I’m certain my brothers and I used it as a surfboard, go-cart and mule wagon many times, without inflicting any noticeable strain. Inside the wagon was all the rigging needed to put up a show: ladders, washtub platforms, trapezes, and a yellow center ring with a smooth side and a slotted side.

The circus itself had 11 performers. A camel and giraffe and show horse. A baby bear and a puppy. A monkey with a pipe cleaner tail that in no time snapped off of his wooden body. A seal with a red ball to snap on its nose. A ringmaster who looked like he enjoyed his drink (but remember, drunkenness was funny back then). And of course, a clown.

While I don’t remember getting this wagon as a gift, I do remember that this was basically mine alone, not shared with my older brothers. I spent many hours putting together performances with these and with any other character laying around: a GI Joe, a rubber orangutan, an orange, a swizzle stick.

A few days after President Kennedy was shot, Sacred Heart Church held a special memorial mass. My mother walked up to church and left us three in the care of a neighbor. While she was gone, I decided that all the characters in the circus needed a bath and dumped them in the bathroom sink. That is why the paper adorning the characters peeled off badly, ruining the resale value of the whole set 50 years later.

Apparently, our Scottie dog Tammy smelled some peanuts or cotton candy on this figure and treated himself to some circus food.

And this might be one reason I’ve never been afraid of clowns.

My friends Steve and Sharon Fiffer started a marvelous site a year ago called STORIED STUFF, where people show the various precious objects in their lives and share the story. He asked me to write one about baseball, so here are my random thoughts attached to an old autographed pill. To see the post in the original site, and to check the many other cool pieces of people’s personal memorabilia, visit Storied Stuff here.

This baseball was signed by all of the 1973 Detroit Tigers. I sprayed it with lacquer before my hands wore off the ink of all the signatures. This spherical madeleine is for:

–all the neighbor ladies (Mrs. Moran, Mrs. Galer, Mrs. Caccavo) who knew baseball and knew the players, and taught me a lot about dedication

–Father Bueche who was in charge of the altar boy ranks at church and took us down to Tiger Stadium occasionally, before being removed in scandal later

–all the men in the dark recesses of The Bengal Bar on Michigan Avenue—though I could never see you, I heard your shouts and laughs, and marveled at the tawdry pleasures of adulthood, and wondered who painted that near-psychedelic tiger on your vestibule wall

–the dozens of transistor radios — silver, aqua, cherry red, as the fashions changed — that I used to listen to Ernie Harwell

–the high school Dad’s Club dads, who always managed to snag a dozen of these baseballs to raffle off on new parent night, gladhanders my dad never could stand

–my mother, who pushed my dad constantly to take me downtown to a ballgame

–my dad, who only very late in his life finally told me he much preferred basketball over baseball

–Willie Horton, “Willie the Wonder,” always my favorite player, home-grown

–and Jim Ray, signing right next to Willie, about whom I remember absolutely nothing.

Let’s pause and raise a glass of cheer
To the closing of a horrid year

(Without our loved ones in the room,
We’ll have to give our toast on Zoom.)

Headaches and heartbreaks too long to list
In our own Annus Horribilis

Nor will all be fixed overnight
Like switching off the Christmas lights.

But you would have called me cray
If I’d described all this…STUFF… in May

The crisis has stretched on and on
But still we need to soldier on

Think of all we have endured
Grab your loins, get set to gird.

The one way out of this is through.
We all know what we have to do.

Stay safe, keep faith, be kind to each other,
Soon we’ll gather, sister and brother,

And sing “Auld Lang Syne” and dance and spoon
On or about the 12th of June.

For those of you who miss baseball and have been playing boardgames way too long:

1B   Ted “Clue” Kluszewski
2B   Wally Backgamman
SS   Leo Cardenas Against Humanity
3B   Howard Battleship

LF   Carl Yahtzeestremski
CF   Candyland Maldonado
RF   Shin-Soo Choo and Ladders

C     Ches Crist

RHP   Boardwalk Brown, David Riske, Chase De Mahjong
LHP   Lefty “Life” Leifield, Marshall Bridges

MGR   Luke Apples to Appling